I chanced upon this gem at Choosing Prosperity From The Inside-Out today. It illustrates just what can happen to you when you when you step onto the path of self-improvement, and some steps you can take to get back on track. You can find the whole article at: Choosing Prosperity: Lessons from Quitting the Prosperity Game and I encourage you to read it.

The article is in reference to “The Prosperity Game” (which I highly recommend, by the way) that Elyse Hope Killoran has created for Choosing Prosperity, based on the teachings of Abraham-Hicks.

Why do we find things that are really good for us — and that feel really good — and then just let them slip away?

The answer is ‘resistance.’

When our ‘resistance’ to anything becomes greater than our desire, everything comes to a grinding halt.

In every dimension of life, ‘desire’ provides the gas and ‘resistance’ acts as the brakes.

Most often we do not even perceive our resistance, as it is part of deeply entrenched patterns that we have come to accept as the limitations of our ‘reality’. As coach and teacher Max Wellspring explains, ‘our resistance often functions under the radar of our awareness causing us to slow down and struggle more — much like the experience of trying to drive with the hand brake on.’

Playing the Prosperity Game will naturally lead to an increased flow of desire energy — along with a new awareness of whatever resistant stance we have been holding. Because it seems so obvious that playing the game should be fun, people become very confused when a melange of emotions are stirred up - but this is precisely by design!

Resistance is not our enemy.

We don’t want to push against or ‘resist’ feeling resistance.

What we push against becomes more pronounced in our experience as in, ‘what we resist, persists.’

What we do want to do with resistance is to ease it, soothe it, reduce it and dissolve it away.

So many people discover the Law of Attraction, get excited, then believe their desires are not manifesting as they should. What they fail to learn is that internal resistance can block the manifestations of intention very solidly. Let’s look at what Abraham, through Esther Hicks, describes as the three steps to intentionally using the Law of Attraction:

1. Ask. “You can’t help but do this.” Your thought of what you desire is the asking part. That’s why “you can’t help but do this”. Merely offering the desire is all that it takes to start the process.
2. Answer. “The Universe answers…every time…no exceptions.” This means that whenever you offer a thought, the manifestation process begins immediately, without question. Your prayers are being answered.
3. Recieve. “You must get yourself into alignment with what you want.” You’ve asked, the Universe (or God–don’t get hung up on terminology) has answered. It is now up to you to open yourself up to the manifestation of your desires, match your ‘vibrational energy’ to what it is you want.

Step 3 is where we all miss the mark. We offer resistance to the manifestation process, and the train roars right on by and we’re oblivious to its passing. All we see is that what we wanted didn’t show up. The fact is that it did show up, but we missed it. We didn’t accept the guidance that was being offered, and the realization of our desire went right past us.

I’ll have more on this once I figure it out for myself…

We humans do amazing things to adapt to our environment: we build houses with heating and cooling, and houses on stilts; we’ve fashioned warm clothing for cold climates, distribution systems for transporting food to places where it can’t be grown, water where there isn’t any (Las Vegas, anyone?), we build dikes and levees to hold back the floodwaters. Scratch that one.

We cope with circumstances, adapt to changes. But is this always a good thing?

I think a lot of us have a tendency to cope or adapt when we shouldn’t. Call it a fear of change, or the comfort zone, or whatever. We tend to put up with things we shouldn’t put up with: abusive bosses, impoliteness, disrespectful children, crime, pollution. We say, “well, there’s nothing I can do about it. I may as well get used to it.”

If there’s a condition surrounding you that isn’t as it should be, don’t just sit and bitch and moan about it, don’t just take it. Don’t cope, don’t adapt.

Do something about it.

Senator Edward Everett and another man spoke at an event long ago. The Senator from Massachusetts had become known as one of the greatest orators of his day. His speech lasted for two and a half hours.

The next speaker spoke for less than five minutes, and almost 3/4 of the words he spoke had only one syllable.

The second speech is the one we all know of. Delivered on the battlefield at Gettysburg by President Abraham Lincoln, it is a simple, powerful, moving message.

So what’s the lesson?

Get rid of extra words. Don’t use cliches. If you have to use the phrase, “in other words,” then use those other words instead. If you’re writing, ask yourself, “Do I speak this way?” If you don’t, then rewrite it. Use simple, powerful, colorful words that don’t tax your reader or listener’s ability to understand. Yes, that means buzzwords, too.

Be direct and to the point. Say your piece, then go away.

Good night!

Oh, sorry. There aren’t 10 tips—just the one.